Chances are that you have. And the reason is because content curation as a social media business strategy has hit the mainstream. Content curation has driven many of the social interactions among and between individuals for years now. Pinterest, Tumblr, Twitter and even Facebook allow and encourage users to post media and links that they did not create.

But only within the last year or so have marketers caught on. As part of a larger content strategy, curation can boost SEO, create relevant associations and feature the best of what fans and consumers are creating – either using or in tribute to a product.

More than just aggregation, content curation is about discovering, compiling and sharing digital content that is relevant either to their brand, their audience or both. The digital and social world has grown more chaotic and overwhelming, making it harder for any one brand to stand out. It requires telling a story through others’ content as opposed to their own, making it much more of an art than a science.

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The concept of curation draws its name from the art world where gallery and museum curators find and highlight collections of work. But no one ever got famous curating art--except for maybe the artists themselves. Without the creators, there would be no curators.

So while curation is a valuable strategy for certain brands, not all brands can or should be curators. Yet every brand can and should be creators of content. More specifically, brands must think and act like publishers, creating shareable content that inspires others (preferably many others) to both create and curate. Content is the social atom, the thing around which every other thing happens. So I ask you: Would you rather curate others’ content, or have others curate your content?

If the answer is the latter, here are three ways that marketers can lead the conversation instead of merely facilitating it:

1. Get Back to Your Roots

Remember when your print campaign, television spot or even digital display banner ad had a creative person working on it? So why wouldn’t you work with creative people – whether in-house or with your agencies – to create your social marketing content? The key is finding those individuals who both understand social platforms AND can create compelling content.

You don’t need to focus group a Facebook post, but good research means doing your fair share of social listening. With an abundance of conversation already taking place, the latest social listening technology and smart research analysts, we can understand what types of people are talking about which brands and competitors and where. Good input yields great output.

3. Disrupt by Juxtaposition

If everything in our Facebook feeds and Twitter feeds looks the same, create something that looks different and stands out from everything next to it. Having good copy is no longer good enough to capture users’ attention. Use visuals with bright colors and big text within bigger graphics. This marketing and packaging still matters.

4. Have a Great Pick-up Line

Yes, social media has created the need for a two-way dialogue more so than any other format in the history of marketing, but someone actually needs to start the conversation. Fans, followers and potential consumers won’t engage with the brand if they don’t like what it is putting out.

5. Be Discoverable

A smart digital strategy will not just blanket every social community with content but will create the right content for the right platform. For example, it may be far less important to have a branded Pinterest page than to make all of the content on a web page actually pinnable by fans and consumers already coming to your web site.

6. Be a Good Storyteller

Taking a lesson from other forms of content, storytelling can both capture and captivate different audiences. The best comedies, tragedies and dramas, whether on film, sitcoms or reality TV, all contain characters, plots, conflicts and resolutions. It appeals to our emotions and makes us feel or think differently and, if it’s really good, compels us to take action.

On Marketing is our home for articles written by people who aren't regular CMO Network contributors with their own pages. It’s a forum for thinkers and doers in the areas of marketing, advertising and media to share content that matter to CMOs.